Not eating pellets after eating them for 2 weeks

[Colettem]

Hi! About 2 weeks ago, I got a 6th month old axolotl. I’d started feeding her pellets, which she ate happily right away! Some days she ate 6. After a couple days of having her, she had fungus, which I have since treated and she is fully healed from. I’ve been keeping her tubbed and doing daily 100% water changes with dechlorinated water (64 degrees F) til I can make sure her tank is completely safe to go back in. While she was sick, she wasn’t eating the pellets. Once she was mostly better three days ago, I got her to eat 7 pellets, but she was very picky about it. I had to continually drop them over her head so she could catch them. She won’t eat them off the floor. It took me about an hour and a half to feed her because the pellet had to fall just right for her to want to eat it. The next day, she would only eat one pellet. She’d gotten skinny from not eating for a couple days and I was worried about her not eating enough, so I gave her a cube of brine shrimp and she ate about half of it. Yesterday, same thing. She ate one pellet and would not touch the rest no matter how hard I tried. I finally gave in and she ate about 1.5 cubes of brine shrimp happily. This morning I tried pellets again, she snapped twice, but missed and won’t touch them since they’re on the ground now. How can I get her to eat the pellets again and is there a way to get her to eat them off the floor so I don’t have to pick them back up over and over? I have nightcrawlers as well, but I’m holding off on trying to give them to her til I can get her back in her tank because I wanted to pick the least messy food while she’s tubbed. I’m also hesitant cause the last time I tried nightcrawlers with an axie they threw it up and wouldn’t eat for a week after. And it was only 1/4 of a worm for a 13 inch big guy. Since she just got better I’m worried about upsetting her tummy. Would she maybe not be eating the pellets cause she’s not hungry? Or could there be another reason? She ate them completely fine before and I haven’t switched brands. Thanks!

 

[michael]

What kind of pellets are you feeding it? It sounds like you might be overfeeding. A 6 month old axolotl only needs to be fed 2 times a week. Much more than 3 times a week is to much. If not enough of the food gets digested between meals it can cause feeding problems. If overfed hard pellets they can swell up after gulped and cause digestive problems. Uneaten food in the tank can cause fungus problems.

 

[Colettem]

What kind of pellets are you feeding it? It sounds like you might be overfeeding. A 6 month old axolotl only needs to be fed 2 times a week. Much more than 3 times a week is to much. If not enough of the food gets digested between meals it can cause feeding problems. If overfed hard pellets they can swell up after gulped and cause digestive problems. Uneaten food in the tank can cause fungus problems.

Oh my! I have been feeding her axolotl pellets I got off Amazon. The breeder I got her from told me she’d been feeding her twice a day, so I didn’t want to change her feeding schedule too much, but I did think it was odd since I didn’t remember feeding my big guy that much when he was a baby. There wasn’t any uneaten food in the tank, I always cleaned all of it out within a few minutes, but the tank wasn’t as cycled as I’d thought it was.

 

[Calgarycoppers]

I disagree with the 6 month old feeding twice a week. If mine arent fed daily they will go after each other.

I dont skip days until they self wean from daily

Agree on hard pellets - they do swell in varying degrees so number of pellets needs to be watched

Try switching to Repashy bottom scratcher or grub pie - its a moist food no swelling and generally a hit due to the fats added to it

What kind of pellets are you feeding it? It sounds like you might be overfeeding. A 6 month old axolotl only needs to be fed 2 times a week. Much more than 3 times a week is to much. If not enough of the food gets digested between meals it can cause feeding problems. If overfed hard pellets they can swell up after gulped and cause digestive problems. Uneaten food in the tank can cause fungus problems.